As is known in the art, automated analyzers are used in clinical laboratories to measure the various chemical constituents of body fluids, such as whole blood, blood serum, blood plasma, cerebral spinal fluid, urine, and the like obtained from patients. Automated analyzers reduce the number of trained technicians required to perform the analyses in a clinical laboratory, improve the accuracy of the testing and reduce the cost per test.
Typically, an automated analyzer includes an automated fluid moving system which automatically aspirates a sample of body fluid from a patient's specimen container and dispenses the sample into a reaction cuvette. The fluid moving system typically includes a pipette which accomplishes the aspirate and dispensing functions under the control of a robotic arm.
Chemical reagents, which are specific to the test being performed, are disposed into the sample-containing cuvette thereby mixing the sample with the chemical reagents. By examining the reaction products resulting from the mixing of the sample and reagents, the automated analyzer determines the concentration of the specific chemical constituent, for which the testing is being performed, in the patient's specimen. Upon completion of the test, the automated analyzer typically prints the results of the test, including a sample identifier, a numerical result of the test, and a range of values for the chemical constituent as measured by the test.
During an aspiration operation, the robotic arm, under command of a system controller, positions the pipette above a specimen container and moves the pipette into the container until the pipette reaches the fluid in the container. A syringe type pump is then typically operated to draw sample fluid from the specimen container into the pipette.
One problem that occurs with the fluid moving systems is that occasionally upon aspirating a sample, the sample pipette fails to be properly disposed in the sample to be aspirated. In this case air, rather than a patient specimen, is drawn into the pipette. This prevents the necessary sample volume of the fluid specimen from being aspirated or from being completely dispensed into the reaction cuvette. If an improper sample volume of specimen is mixed with the reagents, an incorrect test result will typically be obtained.
Generally, when a clinician obtains an unusual test result, the test is repeated and the new result compared to the previous result. If the two results do not agree to within a predetermined limit, the test must be repeated a second time in order to determine which of the previous two results is valid.
An additional prior art method includes aspirating air from the sample probe while the probe is being lowered toward the sample. This aspiration while moving the probe results in varying amounts of air in the system when fluid is aspirated, which in turn results in inaccuracies for the aspiration/dispensation of the sample. These inaccuracies can be particularly troublesome when aspirating/dispensing small volumes (i.e. 10 ul to 200 ul volumes).
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an automated fluid sample aspiration/dispensation device which detects physical contact between a probe tip and a surface of a liquid to thus ensure that a fluid rather than air is drawn in to the sample probe.